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Three Or None?: Oppositional "Troika" Has Uncertain Future Following

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  • Three Or None?: Oppositional "Troika" Has Uncertain Future Following

    THREE OR NONE?: OPPOSITIONAL "TROIKA" HAS UNCERTAIN FUTURE FOLLOWING TSARUKYAN SHUTDOWN

    POLITICS | 23.02.15 | 15:20

    GOHAR ABRAHAMYAN
    ArmeniaNow reporter

    Leaders of the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) and of the Armenian
    National Congress (ANC), neither confirm nor deny the assessment
    of Heritage Party leader Raffi Hovannisian that "the troika does
    not exist".

    Hovannisian made the statement at a rally last Friday, referring to the
    three-party coalition that had hope to form a collective opposition
    but appears non-existent now following PAP leader Gagik Tsarukyan's
    humiliating loss in a power play against President Serzh Sargsyan.

    Tsarukyan had called an "urgent" rally to presumably gain support
    for a public movement to force a snap presidential election.

    After Sargsyan's government threatened to prosecute Tsarukyan for
    unpaid taxes, the powerful businessman relented and pulled his party
    out of the very rally he had called. ANC withdrew its participation
    as well, leaving only Heritage. No more than several hundred people
    showed up to hear Hovanissian say:

    "If today, at this moment, under these snowflakes, we get together
    with hundreds of thousands, there would be a new Armenia. But somebody
    did not want that. It is not Heritage that left the troika. It's a
    pity that our colleagues decided to leave the troika on their own
    initiative."

    PAP spokesman Tigran Urikhanyan would not comment on whether the
    troika is officially dissolved. "Follow our colleagues, and you will
    know later," Urikhanyan told ArmeniaNow.

    ANC spokesman Levon Zurabyan said that the parties must hold
    consultations and only afterwards make announcements about whether
    the three parties will attempt to continue their cooperation.

    According to Armen Badalyan, expert of political and elective
    technologies, the question of troika's existence will be decided by
    the three political forces and not only by one of them.

    "It is no secret that two of those forces are important - the PAP
    and the ANC. Strictly conditionally we can call Heritage an existing
    party with a small number of followers, a small number of members and
    almost no resources. That's why here the important factor is whether
    the PAP and the ANC will collaborate, or whether each of them will
    claim their own path," Badalyan told ArmeniaNow.

    The analyst also says that forces outside Armenia's political field
    control what happens internally.

    "It is no secret that the problem of the government in Armenia is no
    more solved by the public, but rather by Russia," Badalyan said.

    http://armenianow.com/news/politics/60877/gagik_tsarukyan_raffi_hovannisian_serzh_sargsyan

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